What Happens When Mama Prays?

Real Mothers are special people.

Real mothers would like to be able to eat a whole candy bar (all by themselves) and drink a Coke without any "floaters" in it.

Real Mothers know that their kitchen utensils are probably in the sandbox.

Real Mothers often have sticky floors, filthy ovens and happy kids.

Real Mothers know that dried play dough doesn’t come out of shag carpets.

Real Mothers do NOT want to know what the vacuum just sucked up.

Real Mothers sometimes ask "Why me?" and get their answer when a little voice says, "Because I love you best."

Real Mothers know that a child’s growth is not measured by height or years or grade...It is marked by the progression from Mama to Mom to Mother.

This morning we’re talking about a “real mother” whose name is Hannah.

Hannah is a very special woman because she’s one of those rare women that God holds up for us to see and admire.

But we quickly find that Hannah has a problem. It seems that she can’t get pregnant.

Why not? According to this passage God has closed up her womb.

Was God punishing Hannah?

Oh, I don’t think so.

There’s nothing in this story to tell us that she was wicked or evil in any way. In fact the picture painted here is of a godly woman whose heart is breaking and she’s praying with all of her strength that God will help her.

That’s not the kind of person God punishes

The real truth is that God needed Hannah’s womb to remain closed until the appropriate time.

Sometimes God needs us to wait for the right time and the right place before He answers that prayer or before He does that great work in and through us.

2 Chronicles 16:9 says “…the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. – That’s Hannah.

God wasn’t punishing Hannah.

God searched the whole earth to find a woman just like her.

And He knew Hannah would be a woman He could use because Israel was a nation in was in trouble. [Judges 17:6] tells us: “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.”

The whole nation was corrupt and even Eli the priest and his sons were in on the corruption.

God needed to bring about a change.

He needed to raise up a hero who could lead His people to righteousness.

He needed a man who could step up and do what needed to be done.

He needed someone who could be a judge, a prophet, and a priest.

AND in order to train up that kind of leader for Israel God was going to need the help of a very special kind of mother. That’s why Hannah was so important and THIS was her time.

The time was right and God was ready to answer her prayer.

Hannah was the kind of woman that God could count on. Let me ask you something. Can God count on you today? God knew Hannah would be a woman He could work through. How about you? Can God work through you or have you built a wall around your heart, refusing to let Him work through you? Hannah had no idea what God would do but she was willing to let Him do what He saw fit.

But notice that it didn’t happen immediately. First God had to bring Hanna to the point where she was desperate enough to do what God needed done.

You know, God sometimes works through our pain to bring us to that place.

C.S. Lewis once said:

“God whispers to us in our pleasures,

speaks in our conscience,

but shouts in our pains; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

Look at Hannah’s’ decision:

If God will give her a son she says: in 1Samuel 1:11 “… I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life…”

At first glance, that’s not really a big deal, since every first born son belonged to God anyway, according to; [Exodus 13:2] where God told His people: "Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether man or animal."

Here’s the difference in the law and what Hannah was doing.

[Numbers 18:16] tells the Israelites: “When (your son is) a month old, you must redeem him at the redemption price set at five shekels of silver…”

What Hannah’s vowing here is; “God, if you give me a son, I’ll let you keep him. I won’t redeem him back.”

This was no easy decision for her but she determined in her mind and in her heart that if God gave her a son she’d give him to the priests at the Tabernacle to raise so he could serve God.